Further to my recent grumpy old fan post on Oldham Athletic's ticket deal...
Just under 4000 attended the last two home games since the famous "Golden Ticket, roll-up roll-up 5 games for £15", deal was in force for League One side Oldham. This attendance is up from 2500 the previous home game. The Tranmere game at the weekend was not in the deal, apparently, but talk of it seems to have revived interest in the club and the more worrysome games were the upcoming midweek matches.
This should therefore uphold the Oldham chairman's thoughts that action was required to improve attendances. According to his records, the home game against Walsall on Valentines night (never going to be a great attendance - fancy a trip to boundary park, love?) had an attendance tantamount to just a crowd full of season ticket holders.
However, the attendances have been on the slide since christmas, but most hover in the mid 3000s anyway, so it could be a case that 14th Feb was write-off for those who pay game-by-game, and the extra thousand fans (some of whom will be away fans) will now consist of a high proportion of people who would have attended anyway, but are now getting rock-bottom prices for a few matches.
The chairman, Simon Corney, did make a few salient points, other than those of ensuring attendances stay higher than 2000 for the player's sakes. The most telling was that of: "Kids are not going to go in to school and tell their classmates that they support Oldham Athletic - or any other team in this division. They would be laughed at. It has to be United, City or one of the other big guns....It is harder than ever to get youngsters interested in our club."
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